Bardet wins 12th stage, Aru takes overall lead

Five days after he missed out to Rigoberto Uran by a whisker in Chambery, the Frenchman made amends by beating another Colombian at the finish of a thrilling two-and-a-half-hour firecracker in the Pyrenees.

Marcel Kittel captured his second consecutive stage and fifth of the 2017 Tour de France on Wednesday by claiming the crash-marred Stage 11 that spanned from Eymet to Pau. The last Frenchman to win on Bastille Day was David Moncoutie in 2005.

Froome tried an attack in the final metres of the Peguere but was quickly shut down, while the long descent saw a series of attacks and counter-attacks.

He navigated the sprint brilliantly, going wide around a tight final turn and surging ahead of a worn out trio. And once he gets the jersey, awarded to the Tour's overall leader, Froome tends to keep it.

Turns out it was all a rope-a-dope. Chris Froome (Team Sky) is all geared up to finish at the top to defend his 2016 title. Aru's team, Astana, didn't have the caliber athletes to break the train.

And if Froome and Sky win this race in Paris in nine days, then at least they would have done so a little differently - and a whole lot more excitingly.

On the final climb, two groups formed.

As Cummings started on the penultimate climb of the day, Col du Peyresourde, he had a 2 minute and 10 seconds lead on the group of favorites that were chasing behind. Bardet, perhaps the best descender, was the first, though his effort was fruitless.

There was speculation overnight that Landa's late dig into Peyragudes - where he beat Froome to the line on Thursday - meant the Spaniard was not 100 per cent behind Sky's three-time Tour victor and looking out for his own interests.

Fabio Aru celebrates taking the yellow jersey for the first time in his career.

Landa gained time on Aru and on his team-mate Chris Froome when he followed a move by Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo).

AG2R La Mondiale's Romain Bardet, who sits third, 51 seconds off Froome's pace, also hit the deck but quickly recovered, while two-time Tour victor Alberto Contador went down with around 20km remaining before pacing his way back with the help of team-mate Jarlinson Pantano. "The most important thing for me is to stay consistent".

"Let's just say it's never nice to lose the yellow jersey - we lost it by just six seconds". Landa was the biggest victor of the day, jumping from seventh to fifth, now 1:09 back. Uran is 55 seconds behind Aru and Daniel Martin closes out the top 5.

The next two stages will be relatively calm.

The Sky leader finished eighth on a short but tough Pyrenean stage, and said afterwards he felt in much better shape than Thursday.

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